Only my mind lingers, thin and fragile, like the last scrap of me it has not yet devoured.
I glance down and see Atilia’s body discarded on the stone. For a terrible moment she lies still. Then she flinches. Groans. Her head turns slowly, and when her eyes meet mine, they are hers again.
A voice coils inside my head.
“Do not fight. It will all be over soon. Then your pain will be gone.”
I snarl low in my throat as it pushes deeper, its presence obscene, invasive, like serpents writhing beneath my skin.
“I am so glad this has happened,” it murmurs. “I sensed you the moment you arrived. I knew you and I would do glorious things together. That is why I called you. I tasted your grief. Your loss. Your sadness.” It groans, and I twitch at the vulgar intimacy of it. “Such sweet music. Oh, Neve… I will show you wonders.”
My fists clench. Tears burn at the corners of my eyes.
“Now relax,” it croons. “Remember the bargain. You gave yourself willingly.”
I am losing this battle.
But there is enough of me left to know what I want.
Who I love.
“Luceran,” I breathe, my voice ragged, torn from my chest. “Kiss me.”
His eyes lift to mine, dimmed, dulled by pain, but there is fight in him still. His jaw tightens. With a snarl of effort, he grips the chair and hauls himself upright, even as agony ripples through him.
Then his hands cup my face.
He kisses me.
My body trembles as shadows blur my vision, as darkness claws at me from within, but through it all, I feel him. The consuming chill of his mouth. The frost I have missed without knowing it.
Cold surges through me.
It spills from his lips to my cheeks, creeps across my jaw, down my throat. My skin pales, then blues, frost racing along my veins. Even my blood turns cold.
Suddenly the shadows recoil.
The darkness inside me falters, retreating from the cold stealing its ground.
“The bargain!” the demon screams inside my skull. “You agreed!”
I lean fully into Luceran’s kiss, my thoughts calm, unwavering.
“I am not fighting you,” I answer. “I am only kissing the male I love.”
It shrieks.
“You tricked me! No!”
Cold floods me.
The demon is torn free, ripped from my body in a howl of shadow and fury and crashes onto the stone in a formless, writhing mass.
The frost is already waiting.
It devours the shadows from the ground up, ice crawling over the demon’s thrashing shape. Dark tendrils lash and recoil, its breath fogging the air, but the cold does not yield.
Frost climbs higher, sealing every shred of shadow into solid ice, until nothing remains but darkness trapped within a frozen shell.
